Her
by reset313
Summary: Lorne talks about love... Am still working on this, especially the last chapter, comments would be really appreciated. Thanks.
1. Her Part 1

So I'm an idiot...  
  
You know I said before that keeping my mouth shut wasn't one of my strengths and that fact just keeps getting thrown back at me again and again. In fact I did once consider keeping a track on all the times my mouth got me into trouble but I finally decided I that doing so would was almost a full time occupation in itself. Thing is its sort of the way my head works...  
  
SEE  
  
COMMENT  
  
THINK  
  
the fact that I always do this means I have added a forth option to the list...  
  
RUN  
  
It tends to lead to less bruising....  
  
So anyway enough about my mouth, just to say that it is in itself one of the reasons for this next instalment....  
  
So on with the show as they say. It's a thing with us performers see... No matter what the show must go on... Well we tend to put stuff on hold when there's an apocalypse due but other than that....  
  
Wish cast into the sky  
  
I'm moving on  
  
Sweet beginnings do arise  
  
She knows I was wrong  
  
The notes are old,  
  
They bend, they fold  
  
and so do I to a new love.  
  
Weird little bunny love is... I'll be honest I tend to avoid it wherever possible, I find it simply complicates and takes all the fun out of sex. Ahh who am I kidding... I'm as at its mercy as the rest of the universe... We all con ourselves see and that's what I did... Still do every time I think about it...  
  
Days swiftly come and go.  
  
I'm dreaming of her  
  
She's seeing other guys  
  
Emotions they stir  
  
The sun is gone.  
  
The nights are long  
  
And I am left while the tears fall.  
  
Did you think that I would cry,  
  
on the phone?  
  
Do you know what it feels like,  
  
being alone?  
  
I'll find someone new  
  
Swing, Swing, Swing from the tangles of  
  
My heart is crushed by a former love  
  
Can you help me find a way  
  
To carry on again  
  
And hey it was a bigger shock to me than you when it turned out to be a girl!  
  
It was the song that did it... Well that coupled with the aura and the fact that she was probably the cutest thing I had ever seen. Caritas always attracted an eclectic crowd, we never needed a sign word of mouth was always enough to keep the place packed. So seeing humans was never a complete surprise... This one though... This tiny thing who walked in with a six-foot high aura and a chip on her shoulder the size of Alaska totally and utterly blew my mind.  
  
I was sat as ever, at my table, listening to dire renditions of everything from Don McLean to Good Charlotte. It had been a particularly poor night on the talent front, so when she took her place at the mike I wasn't really paying much attention.  
  
But when she started to sing, well let's just say I did a four-minute impression of a fish!  
  
I've got the world on a string,  
  
Sittin` on a rainbow.  
  
Got the string around my finger.  
  
What a world! What a life! I'm in love.  
  
I've got a song that I sing,  
  
I can make the rain go  
  
Any time I move my finger.  
  
Lucky me! Can't you see I'm in love?  
  
Life is a beautiful thing  
  
As long as I hold that string.  
  
I'd be a silly so-and-so  
  
If I should ever let it go.  
  
I've got the world on a string,  
  
Sitting on a rainbow.  
  
Got the string around my finger.  
  
What a world! What a life! I'm in love.  
  
Life is a beautiful thing  
  
As long as I hold that string.  
  
I'd be a silly so-and-so  
  
If I should ever let it go.  
  
I've got the world on a string,  
  
Sitting on a rainbow.  
  
Got the string around my finger.  
  
What a world! What a life!  
  
What a world! What a life!  
  
What a world! What a life!  
  
I'm in love.  
  
It was a personal favourite to begin with and this girl was giving Sarah Vaughn a run for her money in the vocals department. Plus she had this presence that seemed to fill the whole damn room and then some.  
  
*Note... I wanted to add at this point that I'm normally not the sentimental type. I mean I love a good weepy as much as the next person, but I've never been the sort to believe in all that love at first sight, soul mates nonsense.  
  
I still didn't. I mean the girl was gorgeous and had one hell of an aura but I wasn't about to go propose... Well not marriage anyhoo. I wasn't however just going to let her disappear out the door without a word either... Nope.  
  
As the song finished she took a simple half bow and left the stage. I wanted to rush over there before she had a chance to get out the door, but when you're 6' 2" and kinda skinny dashing across a crowded room is really not a good idea. Not if you're trying for an air of Bogart rather than Jerry Lewis... Anyhoo, my reserve was repaid as it turned out she obviously knew the system and was here for a reading.  
  
Her drink was still in her hand as she sat at the table. I was still in the middle of processing everything I'd read in her as she sang.  
  
"So, um I was told by a friend that you... Read people..." Her eyes scanned me closely as if trying to work out how I did it. It's at this point I realise that I'm still doing my halibut impression and rather quickly shut my mouth. I nodded in response to her statement as Felicia brought me a rather well mixed gin and tonic.  
  
Settling back into my 'yes child and I know what your question is' pose, it hits me. Now you know all those clichés... Hit me like a bolt of lightning... Like someone had smashed me over the head with a sledgehammer? Well take all those clichés multiply by like a million and then you'll have some sort of idea as to the intensity the images smashed into my skull.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
"Are you ok? Was that because of me?" The room is a little fuzzy as I hear those words and I look down to find a hand on mine... Not only that but I'm not now at my table, but in my room laid out on my bed with the very attractive girl who just cause me to pass out sat on the edge of it with a really worried look in her eyes. Maybe things are just about to start going my way...  
  
But of course they aren't... No, no, no. Cause its at this moment that I remember exactly what is was that caused the blackout in the first place and that's when I sit up, lean over the edge of the bed and puke my guts up.  
  
Nice going green boy REAL SMOOTH! I'm sensing that maybe I'm not making the best impression with her right now. Well anyhoo once the puking subsides and the oh so cute one gets Mari, one of the bar staff, in to help with the clean up operation, I'm starting to feel just a little better about life the universe and everything. Plus I'm coming to terms with what I've seen in her aura. Well not coming to terms, but at least I can see the images without throwing up.  
  
She's looking at me again and her hand is holding mine, soft fingers squeezing, her thumb gently kneading the flesh as she just looks at me. I kind of just want to stay like that for a while, there's something about the way she's touching me that. Well all I can say is 'hello nurse!' I don't of course in that I'm still making a rather pathetic attempt at smooth or at least trying and pull out of the 'about to crash and burn' nose dive I'm in and regain something even resembling dignity, with an option on classy or even suave at a later date...  
  
"I'm sorry. You saw it didn't you? That's what made you ill right?" The concern is laced with a little fear now, she wanted to know what happened, but now she knows that I've seen it and that it's really not pretty. A part of her doesn't want to hear it now.  
  
"Yeah, I saw it." For a moment it's all I can say as I'm still processing some of the images. What I've seen is a massacre beyond description - men, women, children, brutally slaughtered, a seemingly mindless act of unbelievable violence.  
  
"I work for an organisation that is fighting inter-dimensional slave trading. The massacre you saw was a trader killing his cargo rather than be caught." She's pushing a strand of hair behind her ear again. Every time she does it, within a few seconds it falls back onto her face. Her other hand is still holding onto mine. I feel the pain, like a raw, open wound as she tries to wait patiently for me to seem well enough for her to ask the question she so desperately needs the answer to.  
  
I decide to put her out of her misery. "25 of them made it through the portal before the attack. Your friend was with them, as was her partner and the baby." She's even more beautiful when she really smiles. I. I'm doing the 'catch of the day' facial expression again so I try and ease into a smile of my own without it being too noticeable.  
  
"I kept hoping but." She lets out a long sigh, trying to find the words but failing. Again I help out.  
  
"It's ok, I saw what happened so you don't need to explain. I'm glad they made it." I can also tell without a reading she's happy not to have to go over the whole thing again.  
  
[Thank you so much.]  
  
She's squeezing my hand even tighter now, but I know that this time it's because she's about to leave. I don't want her to go. But she has stuff she needs to deal with right now, I know that only too well from the reading.  
  
"I'm so sorry for. for well you know." Her head tilts to one side as she searches for a way of explaining what just happened.  
  
I am nonchalant as ever. "Forget about it sweetcheeks. All part of the service. Only next time you have a reading I may start off lying down, just to avoid the fall. And make sure I have a sick bag handy you know.  
  
She's nodding as she laughs and gives my hand a final squeeze before letting go. "I'm surprised you're prepared to even consider a next time after what I did to you just now."  
  
"You're welcome to a reading anytime sugar. Cause hell girl you can sing." I'm being totally honest, I really would read her again, despite the pain and the vomit.  
  
"I'd like that."  
  
"Me too."  
  
So she leaves with a wave and a final smile and after twenty minutes or so of just sitting there like a complete bozo, I jump in the shower clean up and change clothes before heading back out into the club for what turned out to be an uneventful end to the night.  
  
So that's it really. That's how I met her. Well of course there's more to it, but as I had to wait almost three weeks, well you can too. The other crazy thing. It took me a week before I realised that when she said thank you she hadn't said it out loud.  
  
Songs are: Swing Swing by the All American Rejects  
I got the world on a string. Harold Arlen/T. Koehler 


	2. Her Part 2

Ok so I had planned to tell you about a trip I took to Vegas a little while ago with Gunn and Xander but I have so much on right now that I'm going to have to put that off for a couple of days at least, but I promise it will be done before Halloween, cause we all know JUST how much I love that! Go Martha...  
  
Anyhoo... I had this VERY weird thing happen yesterday... Totally bizarre. This guy turns up on my doorstep and walks through the club into my bedroom lays down and tells me he's a gift from a client!!!!! And you all know how I feel about gift horses... WELL... Yeah, yeah... ok... Sure... Even I'm not that dumb. But what I do manage to establish, because let's face it, it would be rude not to at least establish what's going on, is that he was indeed sent by some demon I read the week before and it is customary for this species to repay debts in this particular way! Damn what a custom... So by the time he leaves like eight hours later, I'm thinking that reading the guy who sent me his homeworld's version of a gift basket 3 or 4 times a week might be good...  
  
Ok ok, so I'm a slut I admit it... But at least I do admit it... And hey you know I am capable of behaving with the right individual... Oh wait you don't do you cause I haven't told the rest of that story have I? Ok well here's a bit more of what happened with her...  
  
Right pumpkin nuts, pull up an easy chair and pour yourselves the beverage of your choice cause here comes the next thrilling instalment...  
  
So like I said that night she left the club and I was still battling with the after effects of what I'd seen in her aura. But it wasn't until almost a week after when I was thinking about what she'd said to me when I KNEW and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that she hadn't been moving her lips when she said thank you... It was actually a very weird sensation. It was like I had felt what she said rather than listened to it. Yeah ok I know... Totally crazy and hell I had just passed out then puked the moment I woke up. So sure I did exactly the same thing as you are doing right now and put it down to an after effect of the circuit frying reading.  
  
Thing is for the whole week she just kept popping into my head... Oh please, I mean all the time... She had the most amazing bright green eyes, to the point where if I hadn't read her I'd have sworn she was wearing contacts. It was sorta disturbingly out of character for me though. I mean don't get me wrong honey I'm a guy, I think about sex like ALL the time, but with her I was thinking about how she smelled of geranium and lavender or how her fingers felt as they caressed mine... Oh I was thinking about sex too and lots of it... Hey... I'm only non-human damn it!  
  
So this of course is going on and on... Through the second week and into the third, without warning she appears again. It was a Wednesday night. Fairly quiet even for a Wednesday and not the same feel as a weekend crowd. During the week 99% of the clientele is non-human. It's Narchech though this weekend, a festival observed by a large proportion of the demon community and so on Saturday night there will be the most OUTRAGEOUS party, hence the fact that a good deal of the weeknight regulars are saving themselves for the weekend... Anyhoo... She's standing at the bar and she still has this six foot high aura, which is this fabulous shade of burnt orange with rich blue blobs and the odd red swirl. I decide to go for total nonchalance, even though my heart is beating like John Bonham on speed, which is always disconcerting when your heart is in your ass, especially once you sit down. So I make eye contact, smile briefly and nod. Real good so far, friendly, but not desperate...  
  
"Can we talk?" She almost mouths the words, but having worked in clubs for as long as I have I can work out what she's saying even across the room. I nod again and gesture to the booth closest to her. As she sits I wander across the club happy that I'm not lying in my bed looking like death after 10 seconds in the microwave (think about it...) covered in vomit. I'm watching her as I do... She's smiling but there's something bothering her... I though, am happy that the totally uncoolness of the vomitorama is passed and I'm firmly re-established as smooth, heading towards damn sexy before the end of the evening. So you can imagine my annoyance when I suddenly find myself no longer balanced and heading to the ground...  
  
*FUCK!!!!!!!!*  
  
Gerry, a half Melkar, had taken it upon himself to stand right where I was headed and as he's only 4 feet tall and I'm rather bigger than that and looking at the VERY attractive girl who is waiting to talk to me I therefore didn't notice him till after I had fallen over his short but fat ass.  
  
*Note. There's a moment in falling over when you REALLY believe for a fraction of a second that you can stop it. That all you have to do is redistribute your body weight to just there... and you'll be ok... Thing is by the time you've finished thinking that you've already made rather harsh and often painful contact with the floor.  
  
Luckily for me though this time I hit the Vampire to my left and therefore manage a damage limitation so I only look mildly ridiculous as opposed to a total and complete asshole. Anyhoo. I suceed in giving an 'I'm such a great guy I can laugh at my own silliness' kind of a snigger as I finally make it to the table. She gives me the most amazing grin that makes me need to touch her, even just a little, as I sit opposite her. So to stop myself from spontaneously combusting I rest a hand on hers as I say hi... Removing it afterwards, you know just so it's more of a 'I feel comfortable enough to touch you, but I'm not assuming anything about why you're here' sort of a thing that a plain old 'I'm coming on to you and want to have lots of sex, ideally now, but realise we have to go through this whole preamble to get there...' Of course I'm actually thinking the latter... Hey I may analyse, cleanse, tone and moisturise like a woman but I still have the mind and the body of a guy... Well... Anyhoo... She hasn't hit me yet, so I figure that I've made the kind of impression I was going for, despite the slip up in the most literal sense of the phrase. In fact she's seems a little more relaxed than when she first arrived.  
  
So Marcus comes and takes our orders... She drinks vodka *I so like this girl...* But there's still something in her that's just slightly uncomfortable, like she doesn't know how to broach the subject...  
  
"Lorne... I... Did you... Did anything..." God she's pretty when she's got NO IDEA how the heck to put what's in her mind into words... Slender fingers run though her long hair as she struggles to make sense... She picks up her drink as Marcus brings it to her and takes the kind of swig that only someone who can handle their liquor can. "Ok this is sounding totally crazy now I'm here, so... Look, I'm sorry I wasted your time, I should go..."  
  
She's about to stand up so I put my hands over hers and oh god those eyes... Damn... "Finn sugar what is it?" I'm concerned about her and it shows in my voice. *Fuck she knows I heard her* The thought hits me out of nowhere and I don't know why... "Sweetie, when we talked... You... Honey are you telepathic?" I ask her the question, more than prepared to be the one who ends up with the proverbial egg attached to my rather cute mush...  
  
"Shit..." It's not exactly the reply I was expecting... She makes an attempt to clarify the statement, her drink is now empty so I gesture to Marcus to bring her another as she explains... "Sorry. It's just that... Well that's what I planned to ask you... I assumed that it was you and that I could just do it cause you were able to like pick it up but I take it from that question that you're not and so this is now even more confusing than I thought it was..." *Damn she's even cute when she rambles... Did I mention that I REALLY like this girl?* "See I'm not remotely telepathic, psychic, anything like that... I'm good at working people out but that's more about reading their body language that anything else and oh my god how much am I waffling like an idiot."  
  
[It's ok sugar really...]  
  
"Oh my god now you did it..."  
  
I did. I had no clue how, cause I may have been anagogic, but telepathic... Nope. "I know..." Is about all I can initially manage as a response, cause hell this isn't where I thought the night was heading. Eventually my sensible head manages to grab the steering wheel from my genitals, which at this moment in time are busy convincing me that all I really want to think about is her covered in maple syrup wearing nothing at all, singing 'I wanna be loved by you'... Damn... Soo sensible head pulls the bolted pony to a halt and brings my mind back to the present situation. "Look. I strongly suspect this has something to do with the intensity of the reading. I mean it wouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility that somehow I got my head tuned into your frequency." She's starting to relax a little and why not... I mean what I'm saying makes perfect sense... "I'm sure it's just a little residual energy. You packed quite a whack there sugar pie and sometimes the effects can last a while."  
  
Ok... Sure it sounds like it makes sense, but it doesn't. Come on... in all the time I've been reading I have NEVER even remotely had anything like this happen to me. But there's nothing about knowing that gonna help the situation right now so I decide to keep that little snippet to myself.  
  
I take another sip of my drink before I realise she's staring at me. The grin is back with a vengeance. "You are such a liar." She shakes her head in amused acknowledgement of my adjustment of the truth of the situation. "But I know you were trying to make me feel better, soo..." The grin has grown into a laugh. "The really stupid thing is that I have no idea how I know... I just know..." Sitting back in her chair, her bottom lip is drawn between her teeth and I am thanking my lucky stars that there's a table between us... As she releases it she lets out a long sigh. "Want to know what else I know?"  
  
The glint in her eyes means I couldn't say no even if there were a gun pointed at my head... "You know I do..."  
  
She nods... It's true, she knows I do and I know she knows I do... Ok this is getting confusing...  
  
"Well..." She's drawing it out making me wait and oh damn is it sexy... She shrugs with the perfect air of nonchalance I have been searching for all night. "Well, I also know that you REALLY REALLY want me in your bedroom again... But this time while you're conscious... Right?"  
  
Goddamn I love telepathy... I just smile at her... [Right...]  
  
So I'll leave the rest to your imaginations but trust me you have NO clue what its like till you've slept with someone who can read your mind... And yeah... Of course there's more to the story. But once again I'm gonna make you wait... Aren't I just a bitch... 


	3. Her Part 3

All Joss' not mine. The formatting is partially lost here as fanfic.net won't recognise ellipsis and I use those to punctuate a lot. If you want to see it with full formatting visit author's website. Thanks.  
  
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So, we were talking about her before right? And sure I know I said I'd make you wait, but what with all my friends falling in love, I figured you might want an explanation as to why I feel the way I do about it. Oh I need to thank Cas... This part has been tough for me to get down on paper and she helped me sort out what I really wanted to say...  
  
In some ways I guess the two of us just got swept up in the whole thing. But then it was way, WAY too easy to get swept up in her. Plus, we both knew exactly what we were doing despite the wild ride. I just wish there was a way to change the way it ended.  
  
The telepathy came and went. We never knew when it would arrive or how long it would last, there'd just be this wonderful moment when she'd just arrive in my head, like this delightfully wicked daydream. She used to sing in her head all the time, god I loved hearing it. Oh and she also used it as a torture device by describing in great detail just what she was going to do to me when I finished doing whatever it was I happened to be doing at the time.  
  
I have to say folks that the really weird thing is that never. ever. did it bother me that she knew exactly what I was thinking and trust me kitty Kats when I say that with some of the bizarro notions flying around in my overactive noggin I should have been. But that was the thing see. She knew every freaky conceit and still wanted my ass. Which I wasn't opposed to in anyway shape or form. And hell I wanted her even more once I knew what she was thinking.  
  
Anyhoo strudels, the reason for the rather ample preamble is that I just wanted to try and give you a flavour of why it was just so damn easy to fall for her. I knew her in every way, I'd shared her thoughts, and feelings and she mine. Oh and when I say fall. I'm talking top of a cliff, smashing into the rocks below sort of a fall.  
  
Ok question for you. You know how they say when you really fall in love you'll just know? Believe it? I didn't. Not for a second. I mean there has to be doubts right. has to be something that could make the whole thing come crashing down round your ears. But that evening as I sat opposite her in Milek's (great demon restaurant. They make the best pleishta you'll ever find in any dimension) Anyhoo. I'd finished my meal and was sat back nursing the remnants of a very good merlot, watching her polish off the last of the champagne sorbet whilst trying desperately not to choke as a result of the giggling fit she was in the middle of once we'd realised that the waiter looked exactly like John Cleese in the Mr Creosote sketch. Try saying wafer thin mint, whilst laughing you ass off. Not easy trust me.  
  
It was at that precise moment, that it hit me. I could never, ever love anyone else the way I loved Finn. But the best thing was that she was in my head as I thought it and I knew that it was the same for her.  
  
Now don't get me wrong pumpkin nuts. I'm not for a moment suggesting that this was some sort of perfect soul mates, never say a wrong word to each other, every moment is heaven sort of a thing. Noooo way. We argued like a couple of Tasmanian devils on speed at times and knew exactly how to wind the other up to snapping point. But despite all of that. Actually in a weird sort of way exactly because of that. She made me so damn happy, that there wasn't a row in the world big enough to spoil that. Because those moments when it worked. Oh god they were worth all the slammed doors and UFHO. Otherwise known as 'unidentified flying heavy objects'. Well I usually identified them after they hit me in the head but. But despite the frequent head x-rays I knew this was the best thing that ever happened to me.  
  
Oh look at me getting sidetracked again, but I wanted you to have a sense of what it was like. Of how this amazing woman came along and blew my mind, well honestly it was more than just my mind, but that's another story.  
  
I remember one morning, she was wrapped in my arms as we lay in bed and the faint scent of lavender and geranium still clung to her almost as tightly as I did. All I had to say was, 'I don't want you to leave again'. She leaned up and kissed me, soft, slow and so fucking sexy I thought I might burst before she returned the smile and simply replied. "Then I won't".  
  
That afternoon we were fighting over closet space and continuing our on going mission to have sex in every single square inch of the club. Gotta have challenges in life right. and hey, we usually only worked on the project when the place was closed and ok that's a total, total lie, but all I'll say at this point is. my club, live with it.  
  
Like I said before, Finn worked as an investigator of inter-dimensional slave trading. Oh please come on people keep up. Finn - the girl I loved, you remember, the reading at Caritas, I told you then. Anyhoo. Her job and the fact that she was a human shacked up with a demon meant things weren't always that easy for us. Mostly it was verbal, under the breath comments, some people just ignored us, pretended like we weren't there, others told us in no uncertain terms what they thought of us, weird thing is the demons were often worse than the humans. There were a number of places where our welcome was revoked the moment people knew we were together. It gets to you after a while but we tended to hang where we knew people were gonna be ok with us. There were a couple of determined fundamentalist groups who messed up the club a couple of times. You know, we'd come back from dinner to find red paint poured all over the bed and 'demon's whore' or other such highly thought out diatribes daubed all over the walls. Real classy work, we were always so impressed with the originality of the insults. It got to the point where every time we went out we'd leave a list of more original ideas for them on the bed, they never took the hint though and it was always the same old, same old. And sure I got warned off a couple of times, took the odd beating, but as time went on, the whole thing seemed to calm down and just about fizzle out.  
  
It was Caritas' second anniversary that month and well on the way to our own first. We had a FABULOUS birthday bash planned for the club and then Finn and I would be off. Two whole weeks on a private island, great weather, great food. and two weeks of expansion for the project, you know the 'every square inch project'. This guy whose daughter Finn had rescued from some unpleasant dimension or other owned the island . Normally she'd never accept any sort of reward, but the guy was real insistent and damn the girl needed a break. She'd been dimension hopping a lot, a draining experience in itself, but the long hours meant she was worn out and needed serious R & R before she blew a fuse.  
  
A couple of days before the party she came back from yet another dimension hop totally despondent and exhausted, I'd never seen her looking so lost, like she didn't believe she could make a difference anymore. They'd managed to rescue ten people from a trader, but another fifty had been slaughtered for meat only hours before they got there. The poor thing was sick too, it happened sometimes, you went to a new dimension and there were a whole host of mutated or even totally new illnesses for visitors to bring back with them. Still the docs had checked her over and other than throwing up and feeling crappy she was doing ok. I just. I felt like she was hiding something, when I talked to her about it she'd just tell me not to be crazy, how could she keep anything from me when at any moment I might be able to see inside her mind. I wanted to believe her, as I stared into those amazing eyes I wanted to so much. I knew that she loved me. that she wanted me. that whatever the problem was it wasn't about us. But there was something and for whatever reason she wouldn't or couldn't share it with me. Maybe if I'd pressed more, kept bugging her I could have. I don't know. At the time I just figured she had enough to deal with and that she'd more than likely tell me once we got on vacation.  
  
By the time the big b-day approached she was pretty much back to her normal self. Well Finn's normal is much like mine in that it's about as far from the usual definition of normal as you can get but that was one of the main things I adored about her. As for me. I was like some whirling dervish thing, shooting about the place trying to sort out the 6,345,231 things that needed doing before the big shindig and on top of that I kept having to exchange her anniversary gift what with the telepathy and all.  
  
I remember we'd had this magnificent row, over the entertainment. One of the acts had cancelled and we needed a quick replacement. So, the blazing row ends with me pouting, and Finn reeling off the most amazing string of curses I'd heard in years. Damn she was just spectacular when it came to losing her cool.  
  
Anyhoo the final, final conclusion of the row was us, in the storeroom screwing each others' brains out for a couple of hours. Funny our rows often ended that way. A friend of mine laughed at me when I told her this. She said yeah Lorne it's known as make-up sex and the whole world does it. When I told Finn she did that raising her eyes skywards in disgust thing and said for it to be make-up sex something would have to be broke. And it wasn't. I've mentioned that I loved this girl right? Well screw it I think it warrants another mention.  
  
So when we finally reappeared from the storeroom at lunchtime I get the short straw and have to head out for food. Why the short straw? Well it was a rule. Whoever got the last registered orgasm was short straw person and had to go get food, drinks, whatever. Hey couples would stay together much longer if they employed the short straw rule.  
  
I didn't put up as much of a fight as I normally would, even though I was sure that she'd. Well thing was I needed to get her final present. Sure it wasn't our anniversary for almost two weeks but as we were going away straight after the party I needed to pick it up.  
  
I was gone for about an hour I guess, give or take.  
  
1. Present  
  
Finally, after weeks of searching I managed to get something she hadn't guessed. An exact copy of a pendant she'd lost on a rescue mission, she'd tried for months to replace it. It was pure luck that I'd found one just like it. If I'd known that was all the luck I was allowed I'd have never bought the damn thing.  
  
2. Food  
  
For someone so tiny Finn ate like a carthorse. I went to Frankie's and picked up a hamper, so I'm an old romantic, sue me!  
  
3. Home  
  
As I headed back, I made one phone call. I'd decided not to cancel the Steinway. She'd seen it in my head, but we both played so what the hell. If you'd ever heard her version of 'ain't that a kick in the head' you'd know why I was willing to pay so much for a piano. True it helped that she was wearing only her tattoo and a smile. She had a hell of a voice though. I always said we should have an act. Finn would just shrug and say that my ego couldn't take the competition. Ok am needing to mention the loving this girl thing again here.  
  
Three things - about an hour, hour and a half tops.  
  
That was all.  
  
"Ok so we're getting the piano, its gonna be here in a couple of hours." I waited for the laughter and the inevitable. 'I knew you would. I just knew you couldn't resist.' Maybe she hadn't heard. Maybe she was sleeping.  
  
Maybe.  
  
They say the human body holds about nine or ten pints of blood. But I swear it looked like 50 or 60 times that as my brain tried to comprehend the mess they had made of her.  
  
I knew she was dead. Not through any psychic powers or anything like that. I just knew. She wasn't there anymore. But I still needed to hold her, needed to feel like I was doing something anything, to find a way. A way to bring her back. A way for this not to be real. I. She was still warm. So she hadn't been gone long.  
  
I remember being shocked that her eyes were closed. Somehow it felt like they should have been open. A part of me couldn't stop wondering if whoever did this to her had closed her eyes after.  
  
I can't cry. Not cause I didn't want to or whatever, but Pyleans don't have tear ducts see. I think I screamed maybe. shouted something. I dunno, pretty much everything about that is hazy.  
  
"Please don't leave me. please. Finn. Please."  
  
Don't get me wrong, I knew it was futile, knew she couldn't hear me. But I. I had to let her know. All the things I'd never be able to tell her again, how much I loved her and how I still couldn't work out what the hell I'd done to deserve her. How she was the most beautiful woman I ever met and how she made me more complete than I'd ever dreamed possible. So I just sat and whispered them in her ear over and over because I knew that before long they'd come and take her and that it was my last chance to know how her hand felt against my face, how soft her hair was. My last chance to soak up any last trace of her that was left, because what I had now had to last me a lifetime.  
  
I'd been holding her for what seemed like an age before I even noticed the blood that had seeped through my clothes, at the time I just knew she was getting cold and wanted. needed to keep her warm. I teased her hair over the hole in her skull, I didn't like being able to see the tiny flecks of brain matter that peered out from within.  
  
Sal, a dear old friend who used to work at the club, told me they found me there with her at 4pm when they came to prep for the party. I was still totally out of it from what he said.  
  
Only thing I know for sure. As I lay there, willing this not to be with every ounce of strength I had, I could still smell geranium and lavender.  
  
I found her gift to me three weeks later. She'd hired these three sisters who could cast a sanctorium spell. To prevent all demon violence in the club.  
  
I still miss her. 


End file.
